


My Best Friend Went to Rome and All I Got Was This Lousy Pencil

by doctor_denmark



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21836203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_denmark/pseuds/doctor_denmark
Summary: Marcus has been away for six months, but he's got a gift for Esca to show him how much he missed him.
Relationships: Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval
Comments: 14
Kudos: 166
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	My Best Friend Went to Rome and All I Got Was This Lousy Pencil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr_zook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/gifts).



> Thanks to A for looking this over for me. 
> 
> Happy Yuletide friend.

It has been almost six months since Marcus left. Six months and two hellish journeys to and from Rome. Marcus is, was, a legionary, he can march all day with his men, but the cheapest way to get there and back was a lot of travel on boats. He came back onto dry land two days ago and he still feels like he’s about to puke. 

The weather is starting to turn. He left just as spring arrived and now the wet slide into a British winter is definitely here. One more hour, maybe less if he hurries and then he will be home. He pulls his cloak tighter around him and determinedly ignores the ache in his leg. He’ll be fine once he’s by the fire and back in his own home after six long months. 

The light fades just as their farm comes into view. One day, Marcus told his uncle, they would build a villa but in the meantime they have a roundhouse, like the locals. In truth, they could afford it now if they wanted it, but Esca loves it, and Marcus will give almost anything to Esca. They do have a separate one for the animals, which Esca still thinks is idiotic. They hire locals to help when it’s busy, and they have no problems sleeping in there, used to having the family, the animals, everything in one round hut. It’s an anathema to Marcus, and his childhood memories of the spacious and light Etruscan villa. 

“It’s warmer to have them in there in winter,” Esca’s told Marcus over and over. But Marcus has given up many things he was used to on the farm, and Esca relented without too much of a fight. With no fight at all really. They compromise well. They compromised on a small farm, growing crops and raising cattle and sheep. They’re planning on raising horses, but Esca wanted to be sure they were self sufficient first, and Marcus compromised on that. 

“Marcus?” Esca looks up at him as he comes into the house. “I wasn’t expecting you back until...well actually I’m not sure when I was expecting you.”

He stands up from where he’s tending the fire. Marcus takes a step forward and pulls Esca into a hug. He holds his friend close and maybe for a bit longer than a good Roman would, but he admitted to himself a long time ago that he’s not a good Roman. He’s a good man though, he does know that. 

Esca sits him down and hands him a cup of beer. It’s strange that for six months he’s been playing the good soldier, the loyal Roman, the hero who returned the Eagle, and the beer he’s drinking in a cramped roundhouse with his tattooed barbarian of a best friend tastes better than the wine he drank at the table of the Senator he stayed with, the father of someone he served with years ago, before any of this happened. 

“Honestly,” Esca says a while later. “I wasn’t sure I was expecting you back.”

“What?” Marcus asks, half asleep, and finally warm and relaxed by his fire. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d actually come back,” Esca says again, not looking at Marcus. 

“Of course I was coming back.” Marcus hauls himself up so he’s sitting properly, not half lounged on a pile of furs. “This is my home.”

“Rome was your home for a lot longer. I didn’t...I thought maybe you’d get back there and remember how easy life is there. We’ve not exactly got a bathhouse out here,” Esca pauses and he still won’t look at Marcus. “Or slaves to take care of you.” 

Marcus tenses up. “No. No, I’ve not got those. But I’ve got a farm that I’ve put five years into, and a partner to help me run it. And I don’t want slaves.” He remembers those awful days with the Seal People and feels faintly sick. Just another reason he’s not a good Roman, the thought of owning slaves again makes him ill. 

“And I thought maybe you’d meet a wife.”

Marcus laughs. It’s a painful laugh, because this isn’t really funny at all. He can’t quite get rid of the tight knot of shame, because this? This is the real reason he’s not a good Roman. 

“It’s not fucking funny.” Esca finally looks at him. “I had the whole summer to think about this. The whole fucking summer.”

Marcus can’t stop himself from laughing. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. 

Esca’s angry now, frustrated. “Gods, you make no fucking sense, you Roman prick. You make no sense! You didn’t make any sense before you left and you’ve only been back for an hour, and you make even less sense. Why is it so fucking funny that you, a fucking Roman hero who saved Rome’s honour, might find a pretty, rich wife in Rome and decide he’d rather live in luxury rather than return to a tiny farm at the arse end of the Empire, where he lives in a fucking roundhouse like a fucking Durotriges? It makes sense! Half the village came and commiserated with me after you left, telling me that it was good that at least you left me the farm when you went home!” His anger runs out of him suddenly. “You went home.”

Marcus isn’t laughing any more. “I went to Rome,” he says. “And now I’ve come home.” 

“You’d have an easier life in Rome,” Esca says. 

“Rome is a shithole,” Marcus says. “I was there two months and every second I was there was too long. You’ve been there, you know it's a shithole. It’s like Londinium but bigger, hotter, it smells worse and it’s full of assholes.

“I’ve spent the last six months wanting to be back here, Esca. I’m not a good Roman anymore. Not for a long time. Visiting just made me sure of that.”

“You’re the best fucking Roman I’ve ever met.” Esca seems more surly than angry now. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I missed you too,” Marcus says, letting himself smile a little. “I got you something.”

“What?”

“In Rome, they had stalls selling things. Gifts from the city to take home.”

Marcus picks up his travel bag, abandoned beside him, and digs through it until he finds the tabula and its little metal stylus. He hands it to Esca. Esca looks at it carefully, running his fingers over the wax on the tabula and studying the letters on the stylus. Esca’s still not great at reading and writing but they’ve worked on it every winter they’ve lived here and now he can get by.

"I have come from the City. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me and my love for you,” he reads slowly. “I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able to give as generously as the way is long and as my purse is empty." Esca looks up at Marcus. 

“I don’t want a wife, Esca.” 

“You Roman prick.” Esca laughs and launches himself at Marcus. There’s a second of ‘no, wrong, shame’ but Marcus squashes it down as hard as he can. He may not be a good Roman, but he’s a good man, and he gets to have this. 

Their first kiss is not perfect in any way, their noses clash, and neither of them really know what they’re doing. Their second is better. By the third Marcus feels like they’re getting it. 

“I thought you didn’t want this,” Esca says later, as they’re settled warm in their furs. Marcus’s head on Esca’s chest. 

“I shouldn’t want this. Rome says it’s shameful to want this.”

“Marcus-” 

Marcus cuts Esca off before he can say anything. “I know.” 

By the third week away Marcus had admitted to himself that he missed Esca more than he should have. By the third month he’d admitted to himself what he really wanted with Esca. By the time he was ready to leave for home, he’d made his decision, and picked up the souvenir near the port when he was about to leave. 

“I’ve not been a good Roman for a long time. I’m half Barbarian according to my gracious host in Rome. I might...you might need to be patient with me, but I do want this. I want you.”

“You’ve got me.” Esca says. 

Marcus turns his head to kiss Esca’s chest and Esca holds him close. 

It was six months he was away, but he’s back now. He’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> For all my fellow history nerds, the souvenir stylus is a real thing (albeit very slightly differently worded) and was found on an archeological site in London. I'm very happy to have been able to use this useless information for this purpose.


End file.
